The Temptation of Lila and Ethan (23 page)

“Sure, we could go some place else.” I smile at her, but I feel anything but happy on the inside.

She tells her friends she’ll be back in a while and we head up the strip, weaving through the people. She starts telling me about her life, but I barely listen. I just keep nodding my head, thinking about Lila and how I feel about her, and every time I reach the same conclusion. That I don’t think I can think about being with her completely yet, not without thinking about London as well.

I’ve always been good at controlling my actions and
emotions, but they’re out of control at the moment, a wild reckless tornado sweeping through my body. I can’t think straight. Lila. London. Lila. London. The slutty girl in front of me. I have no idea what I want and the truth is, whether I want to admit it to myself or not, I’ve been dependent on the idea of London, holding on to her and on to the guilt I felt for walking away from her that day. I can pretend all I want, but all the sex and numbness I’ve been seeking, just like I’m about to with this girl, was just covering it up, not getting rid of it. And now I’m trying to do the same thing with Lila because I feel guilty over having feelings for her. I think until I can let London go, I won’t ever really be able to be with Lila on a complete emotional level where I’m just thinking of her. And that’s what she deserves. Not my halfhearted attention or my moodiness where I run off to avoid what I’m feeling through sex. It’s a revelation. A big, painful revelation and I have no idea what to do with it, although my original instincts say to go fuck this woman and forget about stuff for a moment.

I suddenly stop in the middle of the strip and people run into me.

The woman I’ve been walking with slows down, looking confused. “What’s wrong?”

I blow out a breath, raking my fingers through my hair, thinking about how bad I just want to fuck her and momentarily feel better and how Lila is probably at home feeling the same way about taking pills, especially with how sad she looked when I bailed on her. “I have to go,” I tell her, backing
away from her through the crowd. I may not be able to have a relationship at the moment with Lila, but I can be her friend and I can walk away from having sex with this woman because I really don’t want to be with her.

“What do you mean you have to go?” she calls out, but doesn’t follow after me, probably because she doesn’t care enough to try. We were simply two people looking for something in the wrong places and we didn’t even bother to get each other’s names.

When I make it back to my truck, I try to call Lila but she doesn’t answer, so I make tire-ripping veer onto the road and floor the gas pedal, pushing the speed limit until I get back to the apartment. I’m worried about what I’ll find and feel guilty that I’ve bailed out on a girl
again
.

When I open the door, my nostrils are instantly flooded with the scent of paint thinner. Or nail polish anyway. Lila peers up at me from the couch, her damp hair a veil around her flushed face. She has her foot propped up on the coffee table and she’s painting her toenails as music plays in the background. My eyes instantly go to the half-empty beer on the table.

“It’s just a beer,” she quickly says as she swipes the paintbrush on her toenail.

“Is it the only thing?” I hate asking, but I need to know.

She blows out a breath, her bangs fluttering up from her face. “What do you think?”

I shut the door and toss the truck keys next to the lamp.
“Whatever you tell me, I’ll think.” I hope though that, like me, she was able to stay away from the one thing that helps her numb the stuff she doesn’t want to feel. I hope she still feels her emotions right now like I am. Because seeing her sitting here makes me realize that even though I still have a lot of shit to work on, mainly with figuring out how to let London and my guilt for her go, walking away from that woman on the strip was the right thing to do.

She puts the brush into the tiny bottle and twists it on, screwing it tightly closed. Then she sits back in the sofa, staring at me with an unreadable expression. “I didn’t take anything, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

I lower myself down onto the armrest and I’m overwhelmed with the scent of nail polish and her shampoo. “I’m not getting at anything, Lila. I just walked into my apartment.”

“Yeah, but that’s why you came back, right?” She scoffs. “Because you thought I was going to do something stupid.”

I let out a stressed breath. “Look, I know things have been weird between us, but—”

“Weird,” she says, cutting me off and throwing her hands into the air exasperatedly. “Ethan, you almost kissed me in the truck and then that night… that night we refuse to talk about…” She shakes her head, discouraged. “I don’t even know where we stand anymore.”

“I don’t…” I struggle for words, surprised by how she tossed it out there so openly. It throws me off and I struggle to get my balance back, but I’m hopelessly falling to a place I’m
unfamiliar with and I need to regain my footing before I do anything drastically life-altering. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I don’t either,” she says. “And it’s been driving me crazy, because I have no idea what I want or what you’re thinking. I’m going so crazy that I seriously thought about using again. Every single thing is driving me crazy!” She balls her hands into fists, about to scream. “I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to lose it. I seriously think I’m losing my mind. I mean, maybe I need to be on pills. Maybe they were what was keeping me sane and now all of my insanity is out there for the whole world to see.”

She doesn’t have to explain. I know what she means. I thrum my fingers on the side of my leg, racking my brain for something that will make this situation better. I need to calm her down and make her understand that she’s not in this alone. “Did I ever tell you about the time I ran my truck into the ditch?” I have a vague idea of where I’m going with this, but honestly I just might be rambling.

“What?” She gapes at me, dumbfounded. “How does that have anything to do with what I just said?”

I slide off the armrest and down onto the cushion, leaving a little distance between us as I kick my feet up onto the coffee table. “It happened two days after I decided to clean up my act. I was pretty much insane and my mind was all over the place. I seriously thought I was going crazy.” I omit the fact that a major part of this had to do with London, because even
though I’ve realized my issues with holding on to London, I’m still not ready to talk to Lila about her. “I ended up dozing off and ramming my truck into a ditch. I was completely sober, and that in and of itself can be even more complex than getting high. It’s distracting, you know. And hard.”

She taps her foot on the ground, refusing to look at me. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because”—I lean closer to her and start to shut my eyes when I get a whiff of her perfume, but quickly blink my eyes open—“I want to let you know that I understand how you’re feeling and that sometimes things do feel all crazy, but it’ll fade.”

She sighs begrudgingly. “How long?”

“Until what?”

“Until it goes away completely?”

I stare ahead at the wall in front of us. “I’m not sure it ever does go completely away. It’s always kind of there, you know. Like a sleeping beast or something, but the intensity of the cravings fades away.”

She turns her head toward me. “Did the beast ever wake up for you? I mean, have you ever slipped up?”

I nod. “Once. About a year after I stopped doing drugs.” The day I saw London again. It was too much to see her like that, a shell of her old self.

“And then what?” Lila asks. “You just fixed yourself again?”

“Pretty much,” I say, again omitting the truth. That I was afraid of myself when I do drugs. Afraid of what I might become. Afraid I’d lose my mind, too, and end up jumping out a window,
following in London’s footsteps. The people at the house had said they had no idea she went upstairs. That they didn’t see her. That’s because they were out of it and I should have been there for her. And she shouldn’t have shot up the damn heroin in the first place. What really gets to me though, and I’ll always wonder, is why did she jump? Was it because of the drugs? Or was it for another reason? Did she want to jump? If I hadn’t left her, then I’d know. If I hadn’t left her, then she might have not jumped. But she still might have. I’ll never really know.

Lila bites on her lip, soaking my words in like a sponge and I pray to God I’ve said everything right. She looks at me, her eyes big and blue, and she frees her lip. “You’re seriously like Mr. Miyagi or something.”

My eyebrows shoot upward and the dark tone of the night flips to amusement. “Did you seriously just reference the
Karate Kid
?”

She shrugs. “What? It’s just an old movie about kicking ass.”

“Yeah, but…” I shake my head. “It doesn’t seem like something you’d watch.”

“Well, I’m full of surprises.” She rolls her eyes like she’s saying the most ridiculous thing that’s ever existed, but really, it’s the truth. Good and bad, Lila has been surprising me over and over again and I wonder just how many more surprises I’m in store for. Good and bad.

“Yes, you are,” I say, truthfully, remembering how different she was when I first met her. “You really are.”

Lila

Ethan’s teaching me how to take care of myself, like how to shop cheap at the grocery store and pretty much spend as little money as possible wherever I go. It’s a little bizarre, not just because I need to be taught these things at the age of twenty, but because what he’s teaching me goes against everything I’ve been taught. I grew up in a home with maids, nannies, dry cleaners, chauffeurs, and money always on hand. Then while I lived with Ella, when I couldn’t pay someone to do these things for me, she’d do them. Looking back at it now, I feel guilty. I should have never let her be responsible for cleaning up after me. Now I’m broke and doing my own laundry. It’s weird and kind of sucks, yet at the same time there’s this strange gratification of being able to take care of myself, like I’m finally not completely worthless.

“I have a job interview tomorrow morning,” I announce as I walk into the apartment, shutting the door behind me, feeling a little proud of myself, despite what position the interview is for.

Ethan glances up from the book he’s writing in at the kitchen table. His hair is swept back out of his eyes and sticks up everywhere. “Oh, thank God. Finally. I was beginning to think I was going to have to kick you out on the streets.” He grins, amused with himself, but there’s an underlying pain in his expression, almost as if he’s forcing his humorous self to come out to disguise something else.

I’d ask him about it, but after the whole truck fiasco I’m deciding it’s better if we keep a little bit of distance between us, until I can figure out where we stand.

“Rude much?” I toss my purse on the couch and chuck the keys at him. He ducks, laughing, and the keys miss him and hit the wall behind him. “And I know you would never put me out on the streets.” I grin as I enter the kitchen. “You like me way too much.”

“Do I now?” He sits up straight and humor dances in his eyes. “But I’m glad you finally got an interview. You’ve seriously applied for, like, a hundred jobs.”

“I know.” I sigh and head to the kitchen, opening the fridge. “But apparently if you’re twenty and have never worked before, no one wants you to work for them.” I grab a can of soda out of the fridge and bump the door shut with my hip. “They all kept looking at me like I was worthless, and I’m not.” I tap the top of my finger against the can as I sink down into the chair. “I’ve got skills, you know.”

“Mad finger skills?” He laughs as he eyes my finger tapping insanely against the top of the can.

I flip him my middle finger. “You would be very surprised at what I can do with my fingers.”

He clenches his fist and places it in front of his mouth. “Oh, I’m sure I would.”

We both go silent. I can hear the loud roar of an engine outside and the clanking of the refrigerator. It’s an awkward silence, which is becoming more common the longer I live here with him. I’m not sure what’s causing it. Sexual tension? Probably from me, but I’m assuming Ethan’s managed to maintain his playboy lifestyle, bringing his women home late at night and sending them home as soon as he’s done with them, because that’s what he’s always done. I haven’t actually seen any of them, but none of them in the past have stuck around very long anyway. I’d be disgusted by his behavior, but I’ve done the same thing time and time again, only I’m usually the one leaving the house in the early hours of the morning.

Ethan clears his throat and then shuts his book, shoving back from the table. “So should we go celebrate?”

“Celebrate what?” I take a gulp of my soda to cool down my body.

He scoops up the keys without taking his eyes off me. “The job interview.” He stands up straight, closing his fingers around the keys. “By the way, where is it at?”

I set the soda can down on the table. “It’s at that bar.” I try not to go into the details on purpose because I’m not sure how he’s going to react.

“What bar?” He pushes the chair in and tucks the keys into the back pocket of his jeans.

“The one down on that street by the old section of Vegas,” I say evasively, pushing away from the table. I collect my can and head for the hallway. “I’m going to go to bed early, so I can get some rest for tomorrow.” I glance over my shoulder as I step through the doorway. “Rain check on the celebration? I only want to celebrate if I get the job.”

He scans me over quizzically. “Where’s the job interview, Lila?”

“Nowhere.” I walk quickly down the hall to avoid any more questioning. Once I make it to my room, I shut the door and breathe in the silence, but as soon as I step away from the door it opens and Ethan comes walking in.

“Where’s the interview, Lila?” he repeats, standing in the doorway, looking vexed.

I place the soda can down on one of the boxes I haven’t unpacked yet and then cross my arms. “Why is this bothering you so much? I thought you were just happy I finally had an interview.”